Selah's first snow & a trip to see Santa

This past Saturday we woke up to a beautiful snow fall.  It was so picturesque; the house was dark from a cloudy early morning, the lights on the tree were the only lights on in the house, the snow was falling, and our little family of 3 played together.  Ahhh bliss.

Selah's grandparents found this really nice snowsuit at a garage sale that looked brand new and even though it said 0-3 months, it somehow still fit her. Our baby girl turned 7 months this weekend!  I've learned that baby clothes sizes are bizarre and do not make any sense.

She was ADORABLE.  We bundled up and took her out in the snow and funnily enough, she reacted the same way she did when we introduced her to the pool this summer: dazed and still.

We went with the Keiths and Hoekstras to visit Santa.  Seeing Santa took all of 4 minutes.  One, it was frigid out. And two, the babies either were confused or scared to death.  Surpsingly, Selah did quite well!  

Favorite Things Christmas Party and babyfood

My Bible study just had our first Christmas party together!  For the party, we decided to do a "Favorite Things" theme.  I found the idea here.

For our group of 10 women, we chose the magic number of 4 gifts at $5 or less a piece.  The idea is that everyone draws 4 names and the names you draw, you place your Favorite Thing gift into their bag.  So everyone leaves the party with 4 Favorite Things gifts from 4 different women in the group.  It's a unique way to learn a little bit about your new friends and things they enjoy, as well as a chance to try new products, etc.

Whenever we get together, it's non-stop talking so of course, barely any photos were taken.

I brought blank note cards as my Favorite Things gift (or blank-insides!).  It's nice to send and receive good ol' hand written cards every now and then.

So fun!  All my loot!

On another note, Selah is doing so much better with solids!  It took over a week for her to accept avocados and sweet potatoes.  To help her along, I began mixing banana with sweet potato.  That did the trick!

Today she ate all 3 foods like a pro.  I was so proud.  I am loving making my own baby food. Now I really feel domestic.  I haven't done all the math yet but I feel we've already saved quite a bit plus it's healthy and quick and easy to do.

Mmm avocado

Isn't she just too cute?  She's 6.5 months... yipes!

I need a tissue

Good grief.  I feel I have been so emotional lately!  Just about every video Caleb has sent me, has me crying 10 seconds into it.  I think it's because just about everything I view now, I view with my daughter in mind.  How I see things are different now because of her and her very existence and imprint on my heart.

I had heard about the movie We Bought A Zoo and that it was worth watching.  I didn't know much about it but I just watched it last night and LOVED it!  So heartwarming with very real elements of pain, grief, loneliness, happiness, joy, and love.  I highly recommend this film.  
It has some language and an intense shouting match between a father and son that might be too much for younger ones, but that particular scene is part of the "breaking point" where relationships and people begin to heal.  
Two thumbs up!  Plus, this ridiculously cute little girl is in it.  

Caleb sent me a video about one family's journey through the loss of their daughter in the Sandy Hook shooting last year.  Can you believe that this Saturday is the one year anniversary of this tragedy?  Wow.  How has 1 year gone by already?
I remember hearing the news while at work.  I came home, sat in the basement, glued to the TV hesitantly watching horrifying clip after horrifying clip that swarmed every channel.  I was almost 4 months pregnant at this time.  I sank into Caleb and just cried as we continued to watch the news for the rest of the evening.
So many questions.

How could someone do this?
How could someone maliciously, without a second thought, kill these innocent children?
It's Christmas.... these poor families.  How can they go on?  Every Christmas is a now an awful reminder of this nightmare.
Where was God in all of this?
Why did this have to happen?

This video is beautiful.  Evil did not win that day.  This video is proof of many things.
There is still good in mankind.
God knows exactly how we feel, afterall, His own Son died.
God is healing to the families that felt broken.  God is strength to the families when they didn't think they could go on without their child.  God is love to the families through other people showering them with love.
God loves the little children.  All the children of the world.
A child, no matter how small or how young, can have such an impact and through others, begin to change and help the world.

But viewer, do yourself a favor and grab a tissue.  Or two.

Good ol' toys

Stick with me as I explain how I came to the topic of toys, specifically 90's toys.  

I turned on Winnie the Pooh's Christmas movie in hopes it would distract Selah so I could clip her fingernails. This movie reminded me of a Looney Tunes Christmas, which is one of my favorites as it is full of nostalgia from my childhood.  However, an equal warm fuzzy feeling that came with the Looney Tunes Christmas video was the commercials that came with it.  
There was a 7up commercial, PJ Sparkles doll commercial that I wanted SO BADLY, and the infamous Nestle Toll House commercial with the time elapsed cookies rising that made you want to jump into the TV and devour the gooey morsels.

Anyway, all of that led to me thinking about the toy commercials and there were a lot during the Christmas season and Saturday morning cartoons.  I remember wanting so many of them; they seemed to be the "it-toy" that would continue to taunt me as they remained a distant dream.  

Have a glance back to the 90's toys that were hot hits for young girls.  Some I don't recall and were maybe too old for a 5 year old girl but many, many of them, I remember wanting and wanting badly.

55 Toys And Games That Will Make ’90s Girls Super Nostalgic

Ahhh the good ol' days.

New dishes you MUST try

Pinterest is a tricky fad.  It's full of wonderful home decor ideas that I envy, clothes I wish I had but will never buy, hairstyles I love but will never have the courage to try, parenting tips I find interesting, recipes I try where some are wins and some are disasters, helpful home remedies, workouts that inspire me but I can't find the motivation to actually follow through with, so on and so forth.  

This post is mainly about new dishes that I've tried and were huge hits in our home.  If you are looking for new recipes to change up your weekly routine, try some of these!
(PS these pics aren't mine, they are directly from the blogs they belong to.)

Teriyaki Salmon with Sriracha Cream Sauce

Melt in Your Mouth Chicken Breast

5 Ingredient White Chicken Chili

Cilantro Lime Chicken

Crockpot Orange Chicken

Avocado Cheddar & Sundried Tomato Quesadilla

(I added shredded chicken, lime and cilantro to this recipe)

And lastly, for a quick and healthy snack, try these no-bake peanut butter bars.  I've made them twice now and eaten the whole pan myself.  I'd like to add chocolate chips sometime!

There's a baby in that leaf pile!

We have three trees in our backyard.  One is a locust so it drops all its pesky little leaves fairly early but they're so small it's impossible to rake them.  On the other hand are the two maples. They drop their leaves much later in the fall and let me tell you, if we raked all the leaves into one pile, we'd be the hottest spot in the neighborhood for kids to come and play. Here's our backyard after just one of the maples dropped its leaves.  There's grass under there somewhere.

The time came to rake and of course, we had to have a photo shoot with Selah and the leaves.  

  

Yeeees, yes, I know I'm biased.  But man my kid is cute!

This is one of my favorites!

Hahahahaha  Baby in a leaf pile!

He pulled her up and leaves were stuck all over her.  

  

Why not eat the leaves?

  

Here's all the leaves from one of the maples.  See how far behind me it goes?  And there was more behind the camera that we didn't get in the photo!

Happy fall!

First solids

Selah will turn 6 months old this Friday.  She is noticing what we're eating and reaches for our plates. Although, she's teething, so if she can get her little paws on something, it's going to go right in the mouth. Since my milk supply has decreased, we decided it's a good time to start supplementing breast milk with some solids.

Now, starting solids is a big deal to me!  I wanted Caleb to be home when we first tried so he could be a part of this fun milestone.  You know, video taping, taking pictures, the confused and unsure look on her little face, baby food all over her face, hands and in her hair.  I wanted to capture every moment!  

All we had on hand was Cream of Wheat and Oatmeal.  I researched a bit and while babies can eat Cream of Wheat, wheat is an allergen, and I decided I didn't want to try that first.  I found a recipe on how to make oatmeal for babies.  

I busted out my food processor which, until now, has only had the privilege of making salsa.  The food processor whizzed and chopped the oats into a powder, which I then made into oatmeal on the stove followed by watering it down with some breast milk.

We don't have a high chair yet so we strapped her in the Bumbo seat and began her first solids feeding. Here goes!

Let's just say... it was kind of an epic fail.

I knew it'd be a very different texture than what she is used to.  I knew it'd be bland tasting.  She hated it.  In fact, she cried.  

I found this really well done and thorough blog on making your own baby food.  I plan to try avocado, sweet potato and bananas next.  Here's to hoping it goes better next time!

5 months

This is incredibly late.  Almost 1 month late actually.  But Selah is finishing up her 5th month and we've experienced a lot of new things this month!

Milestones

She rolled over from back to tummy (just yesterday!)
She "talk"s so much; it is one of my favorite things she does.  
She loves singing.  We sing to her a lot, usually making up goofy songs.  We sound ridiculous but she enjoys it.
She loves her Exer-Saucer.  She is in her own little world talking to herself and the toys.
She actually enjoys bath time now!  She is enthralled with the bubbles, loves to kick and splash and loves her blue turtle bath toy (Turtledove as her daddy calls it).
She cut her 2 bottom teeth at 4.5 months.  She grinds her gums.  It's a horrible sound.  Her sleep was being disrupted by what we assume was teething.  We are trying the amber teething necklace and it seems to be helping her sleep better at night.
She generally sleeps very well at night now.  She goes to bed around 7:30p and will sleep till about 4a when a very heavy diaper wakes her up.  From 4a on, sleep becomes hit or miss, which makes for early mornings in the Redelman household...  for probably the next 8 years at least.
She refuses to nap in the crib.  Her naps are either in the swing, in my arms, in the car, or in the Baby Bjorn carrier.  Not super helpful.
She has found her feet.
She puts everything in her mouth.
I waved and she waved back.  7 times.  It wasn't just a fluke.
Her laugh is the most amazing sound in the world.
We are working on helping her learn to sit up.  It's hard to do tummy time with her because she spits up every time, even hours after her last feeding.  
She is noticing the food we eat and is constantly grabbing for it.  We will be starting solids in the next week.
She gets super excited when she sees her daddy come home from work.
She is enthralled with my hair and plays with it gently while she nurses.

Love you baby girl!  Stop growing!  But ... keep growing because it's fun to watch you learn.  Just don't do it too fast :-)

Selah's first Halloween

Let's just get this out in the open.  I am not a fan of Halloween.  I used to like it.  Then I used to hate it.  Now I suppose you could say I'm indifferent about it.  I'll go along with it but it comes with a reluctant sigh and a roll of the eyes.  It does help that I have a child and let's face it...  babies in costume are one of the cutest things out there.  Just look and see!

Bobbi (Selah's grandma) got her a pumpkin costume and thankfully, it fit perfectly.  She did look pretty darn cute if I do say so myself.  

 Darn that slippery couch

 Happy Halloween mom and dad!

My small group had a get together on Halloween and of course all the kiddies came dressed up.  Look!  You can't get much cuter than this!  But trying to get 4 babies to cooperate for a photo shoot is near impossible.  Although Ella has it down pat.  She's the only one that has figured out that you smile for the camera.  To be fair, the rest of the kiddos were staring at us like we were crazy because they had 6+ adults trying to get their attention.  There was a lot of funny noises, gestures and faces being made to get their attention, hence all the staring.

 There's Caleb being a good guard to make sure none of them took a dive off the couch.

We've got Zeke the lobster, Ella the Bernese Mountain puppy, and Selah & Jack the lil' pumpkins.

 This picture cracks me up.  Selah does not look amused.  And Jack, ahhh the old soul Jack.

Happy Halloween from the Redelmans and their dazed and confused lil' pumpkin.